bentara budaya

 

Following the official start date of Jakarta Biennale, all kinds of art exhibitions are opening up around town. And to create a kind of fun journey for myself, I allocate myself a whole day for some kind of an "art trip", a whole day spent looking at galleries.

For my first stop, I went to the Bentara Budaya gallery. Showcasing a wide collection of traditional Indonesian paintings and sculptures, from top notch maestro such as affandi. I'm not exactly a fan of the classics, but it was nice to familiarize myself with how the art was back then.

adu ayam - by affandi

amazing details on this litograph work

one of the best watercolor painting I've ever seen

Beastly @ Salihara

The next exhibition I visited was the one at Salihara, entitled "Perikebinatangan" or Beastly. From the word itself, you can already guess what the underlying theme is. Human's animalistic side are continuously explored in many different ways. Mainly highlighting the similarities in how we look like, how we act and behave, as well as the relation between man and animal.

Out of all the artworks, my top 3 includes: 1. colorful ceramic birds 2. illustrations on wood 3. the black and red deer illustration. But that's just from a visual aspect. In terms of the conceptual side, I was amazed by the donkey from shrek painting.

Right next to every artwork on display, there is a information card regarding title, artist, and an accompanying explanation for the work. For this particular painting the artist wrote about a paragraph that speaks about donkeys.

The artist believed that donkeys are actually smart. They tricked us to believe that they are dumb and lazy. But the truth is that they did so on purpose, thus humans would use horses to do the hard work instead. Then, donkeys can just relax and never had to do any hard work.

Have you ever thought that this might be true, or even some other animals may actually have successfully tricked us as well? I guess maybe we're not exactly the smart one after all

Just kidding. But it is a very interesting thought behind such satirical and humorous painting. That is why I was most fascinated by this work. What about you? Do you like it as well? or do you have your own crazy idea?

PMR cube exhibition

Hi guys, sorry for the lack of updates in the past 2 weeks. Ever since I'm back in Jakarta, I've been trying to do as many things as I can to make sure I'm being productive in this holiday season (instead of sleeping all day like I used to :p)

One of the things in my priority list, was to check out current art exhibitions around town. Not just to keep me busy, but because I love it. I'm always the happiest when I'm surrounded by art. No matter its my own art or other people's. The anxiousness you get right before you enter a gallery space, the 30 second jaw-dropping moment when you saw an awesome artwork, and the thrill when you get the opportunity to meet and have a talk with the artist. Its addicting for me. 

For the first exhibition of many more to come, I first visited the exhibition held by PMR Cube @ sampoerna strategic square. With a focus on contemporary culture, more than 60 artworks combined of artists and fashion designers, creating one spectacular and memorable exhibition. And here are some of the works exhibited

cant get enough of the jelly bean face

motorcycle made out of paper

 chromagraphic print

 yup, this 5 photos are from just 1 single artwork

 this giant sculpture made entirely of cassette tape

3 looks adorn by buttons as appliques

It was quite an interesting concept to brought fashion designers into the space as well. Just because one doesn't work with paint on canvases or sculpting marble, that doesn't mean they're not artist. These days, the word 'artist' have less limit than ever before and this is something to we need to acknowledge, accept, and embrace.

Because for me, an artist is categorized by the his or hers formulation of idea and the resulting physical and non-physical (e.g. sound, atmosphere, and feeling) embodiment. Like the chromagraphic print, which for me evoke the idea of alter-ego through the fantastic photography technique and the resulting ghastly ambient created from the printing technique. 

So which one is your favorite? and why?